


A Quiet Evening at Prufrock

by orphan_account



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Homophobia, M/M, Redemption, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-02 00:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15785004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Klaus Baudelaire is studying dull poetry for homework as he contemplates his predicament. Just when he thought it couldn't get worse, it does.Rated T for references to homophobic bullying and teenage mischief.





	A Quiet Evening at Prufrock

Klaus looked scornfully at the reading material he had been assigned for the week. He appreciated a vast repertoire of poetry, a phrase which here means, “nearly the sum of all such works he had perused in the various libraries he had visited,” but the bland style and subpar diction of Edgar Guest made it exceedingly difficult to concentrate.

“It wouldn’t much matter if I were a king, and I’m already rich, in a sense,” he thought to himself. “Count Olaf would simply track me and my sisters down.”

Before the middle Baudelaire could continue his self-commentary on Guest’s poems, a familiar pink-clad figure appeared at the entrance of the common room where he had been studying, flanked by two other children.

“Look at Klaus, what a nerd,” the girl in pink chanted. “I bet he doesn’t even have a bird.”

“That doesn’t even make sense!” Klaus rebutted. “Won’t you leave me alone?”

Oblivious to Klaus’ plea for privacy, she continued. “I’m surprised that a bookworm like you isn’t aware that ‘bird’ in certain contexts is British slang for girl.”

“Yeah!” agreed the red-haired boy on Carmelita’s right nastily. “I bet you’re too busy sniffing cake to get a girlfriend!”

“He means you’re just an ugly queer!” added the blond girl on Carmelita’s left. “No queer orphans are allowed in the common room!”

Klaus was incensed. It was enough that he had to deal with Carmelita’s normal annoyances and the drudgery of schoolwork, but her escalation into blatant bigotry was intolerable. He had to take a stand, even if his sisters weren’t present to help.

“Says who?” he asked firmly, standing level with his tormentors.

“Says me!” the heiress to the Spats fortune declared gleefully as she pirouetted. “I spoke with Vice Principal Nero, and he told me to tell all orphans that they must give an extra bag of candy to me for being queer!”

“That’s ridiculous! I don’t have any candy on me right now, and even if I did, I wouldn’t share it to you on your deathbed!” 

Despite the passion encapsulated by the literary Baudelaire’s response, it was not altogether true. He had saved a piece of gum from a particularly unsavory encounter at Lucky Smells Lumbermill. He had been saving it for a special occasion, and not, as he feared would happen, be robbed of it by an insufferable brat.

“Oh is that so?” Carmelita said, wagging her right index finger as if she were shaming a naughty pet. “I heard from a friend of a friend that you have some sweet gum in your coat pocket. Is it for your boyfriend?”

“You have no right!” Klaus shouted. Before he could continue, Carmelita’s accomplices had surrounded him and pinned his arms to the nearest wall.

Carmelita reached into where she suspected the candy was located and produced the desired article almost instantly. “Aha!” Just as she was about to unwrap the Baudelaire’s versatile fructose delight and place it into her mouth, a firm voice echoed from the stairway leading up to the boys’ dormitory.

“Let him go, Carmelita,” it said.

Carmelita hesitated, an unusual decision considering her brash nature and the fact that she had been assigned Aphorisms of the Queequeg as her latest sinecural homework. 

“And why should I do that?” she asked snottily, depositing the reward of her extortion into her skirt pocket. 

“Because,” said the voice, who revealed himself to be Duncan. “I’ll beat the snot out of you if you don’t stop hurting my friend.”

“You wouldn’t dare hit a lady.” She gave a melodramatic flourish with one hand as if to emphasize her feminine fancies.

“You’re right, I wouldn’t,” Duncan sighed resignedly. “Even if you do disgrace all real ladies everywhere.”

“Take that back!” exclaimed Carmelita as she stomped towards the Quagmire. The blond-haired girl followed behind her while the red-haired boy remained with Klaus. 

Duncan simply stared his opponents down without a hint of emotion. He was nearly the same height as Carmelita (with heels, she was undoubtedly taller), but there was no denying who the more imposing character was in the room.

Grasping at straws, Carmelita began to throw a signature tantrum. “I’m going to pound both of you to a pulp!” she shrieked mere centimeters from Duncan’s face. The boy standing guard over Klaus raised him by his shirt collar and had balled his free hand into a fist. The girl flanking Carmelita kicked off her heels and dual-wielded them menacingly.

“Oh really?” the apprentice reporter replied incredulously. “Before you do that, maybe you should take a look at this.” He produced a small slip of paper from the breast pocket of his shirt.

“That looks like a photographic negative,” Klaus commented. “Don’t expose that to too much white light, Duncan, or else --”

“Shut up, nerd,” the boy growled, displaying a scarred fist.

“Don’t worry, Klaus,” Duncan said reassuringly. “This is just the physical copy. The original is in the school’s Advanced Computer System and will be ready to distribute tomorrow morning.”

“What in the… OH MY --”

It is anyone’s guess as to what string of expletives followed Carmelita’s exclamation, but what is known is the content of the negative Duncan had displayed. It showed a surreptitiously captured photograph of a certain curly-haired pestilence brazenly defiling a celebratory dessert with her nostrils, a phrase which here means, “dramatic irony”. 

“That’s right,” Duncan smirked. “And as Chief Editor of the Prufrock Herald, our school’s finest and only independent journalistic institution, I can assure that this will be headline news for at least a week. The Daily Punctilio has expressed an interest in such scoops as well.”

“NOOO!” Carmelita agonizingly screamed as her accomplices were reduced to fits of laughter. 

“Maybe we should get back to the Shack,” Klaus hurriedly suggested as his arch nemesis tore her hair out.

“Nah, I’m friends with the Resident Advisor here,” Duncan replied. “We can stay in the dorms as long as we clean up after ourselves.”

“Can we stay up for a bit though?” Klaus asked. “I’ve got some reading to do and I thought maybe we could get some fresh air.”

“Let’s head to the rooftop then,” suggested Duncan.

The two left an incoherent Carmelita and her laughter-wracked compatriots behind as the climbed the spiral staircase, bypassing the dormitory. After an additional flight of stairs up a dilapidated stone passageway, they arrived at the flat gray roof of the dormitory. They exited out of a nondescript breezeblock hut and were greeted by one on the opposite side for the girls’ stairwell and a stone inset ledge running along the rectangular perimeter.

“The Hinterlands are beautiful at sunset, aren’t they?” Klaus said admiringly.

“Yes,” Duncan replied quietly as he took a seat on the ledge. However, he wasn’t looking westwards, but rather towards the middle Baudelaire.

“Um, is there anything you wanted to ask?” Klaus said obliviously.

“Just about the gum,” the Quagmire said. “Why were you saving it? And for whom? Off the record, of course.”

Klaus took a moment to collect himself. “While my sisters and I were at Lucky Smells Lumbermill, I was hypnotized by a sinister optimist, I mean optometrist. While under the influence, I nearly killed a fellow worker, my sisters and happily accepted gum as payment.”

“That sound awful!” Duncan interrupted. “Why would you want a reminder of your time there?”

“To remind me of how fragile the human condition is,” he replied. “And that good intentions alone aren’t enough in this twisted world of arson and ignorance. And that’s why I wanted to share it with you.”

“With me? Why me?”

“Because you’re a light of hope in that darkness; you show that nobility is still a virtue worth living for,” Klaus said endearingly. He reached into his coat pocket, only to find the absence of gum. “Oh. I forgot I left it behind with Carmelita.”

“Don’t look glum,” Duncan said as he put his arm around Klaus’ shoulders. “A piece of gum is just another material possession. We have each other, and that’s what matters.”

The Quagmire began whistling a familiar jaunty melody that echoed throughout the desolate campus.

“I recognize that tune!” Klaus said in amazement. “That’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, from Monty Python! My family watched that almost every month! Before the fire, I mean.”

“So did mine,” he replied briefly. “Feel free to whistle along, if you remember.”

“Of course I remember!” 

Just as the boys were about to begin their duet, a figure emerged from the girls’ breezeblock hut.

“Care if I join?” she said without a hint of snotiness. The boys turned, and to their amazement, saw Carmelita.

“I’m not afraid of you anymore,” Klaus said.

“That’s okay,” she replied gently. “Nobody is. Word travels fast, and my former friends have all made me into a laughingstock. I guess the least I can do is return your gum.”

She handed it to Klaus, who, to her amazement, split it into thirds and offered one piece to her.

“Why?” she asked. “After all that I’ve done to make your lives miserable?”

“I think you’re sincerely trying to change that,” Klaus explained. “Would you care to join us for some whistling? Surely you know some Monty Python.”

“Know it? I live it!”

“Wait until the readers of the Prufrock Herald read this: Disgraced Heiress Schoolgirl a NERD!” Duncan jibed.

“Shush!” she said playfully.

The three children sat down on the dormitory ledge and began whistling in unison, and for just a moment, they each forgot their individual worries and tribulations.


End file.
